


The Sign of Eight

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Funny, John Watson is a Good Boyfriend, M/M, Octopi & Squid, Phobias, not tentacle porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 12:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: Sherlock gets a case involving an octopus... and discovers he doesn't like octopus.





	The Sign of Eight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StillTheAddict](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillTheAddict/gifts).



> With thanks to all the Fic Writers' Retreat folks.

“I can’t believe you’ve called me out about a _goldfish_ , Lestrade.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes; John wondered if he had picked that habit up from Sherlock. “S’not a goldfish, Sherlock, as has been explained to me a couple of times already. It’s tropical, and terribly expensive, and the aquarium manager has been down my shirt about it since I got here.”

“It’s a fish.”

“They’re worth about twenty five thousand pounds each, and two have gone missing already, so it’s not like he can run down to the pet shop and get another.”

John raised his eyebrows. “Twenty five thousand?”

“Right. So?” Lestrade turned to Sherlock, who sniffed, shrugged, and strode into the aquarium.

Lestrade and John followed. “Thanks for coming, mate,” Lestrade said.

“You had me at ‘aquarium’,” John said. “I love fish and that. I just had to talk himself into coming down.”

“I have to admit it’s pretty cool. I’ll have to bring the sprogs the next weekend I’ve got them. But keep an eye open, John – the aquarium manager really is a bit of a dick, so try not to kill him, or let Sherlock kill him, all right?”

“Got it.”

The room was flushed blue from the water, casting an eerie light on Hopkins and Donovan, as well as a suited, bearded man with thick glasses who could only be the manager. The man was clearly upset, barely in control of his anger and impatience. His jaw tightened as Sherlock, John and Lestrade entered. “Who’s this then?” he asked Lestrade.

“Sherlock Holmes, and John Watson,” Lestrade said. “They’re consultants, we bring them in for special cases such as this.”

“Consultants? As opposed to more detectives? This is preposterous. This is a serious matter, Detective Inspector.”

“I know that,” Lestrade said with a level of patience that John had to admire. “We need to-”

“We need to stop wasting time complaining,” Sherlock interrupted, “and more time solving this ridiculous matter. The facts, if you please.”

The man sputtered. “Ridiculous? I’ll have you know that-”

“All right, everyone take a breath,” John said. “Mister…?”

“Reynolds.”

“Mr. Reynolds, I think you’ll find that Sherlock can solve things quite quickly, with the right information. Would you please run down the situation for us.”

Reynolds sniffed, clearly not completely mollified, but resigned. “Fine.” He turned to the large tank of fish, serenely swimming around the coral. “The aquarium recently invested in four peppermint angelfish, or C. boylei, from the Cook Islands in the eastern-central Pacific. These fish are terribly rare, as they are only found in depths of 53 to 120 metres. There were two males and two females, as we were planning to breed them here. One of the males went missing last week. We didn’t notice for a day because they’re very shy fish, we thought he was hiding in the coral. Then yesterday we realized that one of the females was missing as well. I believe someone is stealing them to begin their own breeding program.”

“Any other fish missing?” Sherlock said.

“No.”

“Actually, sir,” said a young woman in a lab coat, “we lost a Neptune Grouper last month.”

“Yes, but that’s unrelated.”

“I’ll decide what’s related and what is not, thank you,” Sherlock snapped. “Which tank did they disappear from?”

“This one,” Reynolds said, pointing at a tank that ran the length of the room.

“Both kinds of fish were in the same tank?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll want to speak with the staff,” Sherlock said, as they headed over to look at the tank. “John?”

But John had been distracted by the tank opposite. “Look at this, Sherlock,” he said, his voice soft with awe.

It was an octopus. Its skin was mottled rust, smooth and silky looking in the water. It moved slowly and gently, rippling as it went. John could imagine a tolerant expression on its face, perhaps faintly amused by all these silly humans near its tank and their silly problems.

“Sherlock?” John said again. He turned, but Sherlock was gone. The others were looking toward the door, their jaws hanging.

“He… left,” said Hopkins.

John shrugged. “He does that.”

“Not like that,” Donovan said. “It wasn’t his ‘I’ve got an idea’ run, or his ‘I’m in a strop’ run, it was… I’ve never seen him run like that.”

John considered heading after him for a moment, then realized that it was likely fruitless. When Sherlock wanted to go, there was no stopping him, especially when he had a few minutes’ head start. Then he realized that everyone was looking at him expectantly: Reynolds, the lab-coated young woman, Lestrade – even Donovan. The world’s only consulting detective was gone, and all that was left was the world’s only doctor/soldier/blogger/detective’s assistant, and it was up to him now.

He bit his lip and sighed internally. “Right. You’ve got security footage, I assume?”

**

When John came home, he found Sherlock folded up like a paperclip in his chair, still wearing his coat. His hands were wrapped around his legs, and white with tension. There were two red marks on his forehead, where he had been pressing his head into his knees.

“Sherlock?” John said. “Love? What happened? Where’d you go?”

“I-” Sherlock started, cleared his throat and started again, looking haughty. “I had a clue, a – a theory, and-”

“No, you didn’t,” John said with a small smile. “You just left.”

Sherlock was silent, his lips pressed together, not agreeing at all.

“All right, love. Tell me. What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing my arse. Donovan said you ran out like the hounds of hell were after you. Not that we haven’t already had experience with that. Come on, what was it?”

Sherlock put his head down, leaning on his knees. John heard him say something, muffled and indistinct.

“Pardon?”

Still muffled but slightly louder, Sherlock said, “I don’t like octopus.”

“What? Why?”

Sherlock’s head shot up, his face red with embarrassment or with the pressure of pressing against his knees. “It’s their _brains_ , John. Their brains are just – _flopping_ there, not being held up by a spine or anything, and and and their skin is so thin you can _see_ it, it’s just right _there_ , and then their eyes look at you and you can see it _thinking_ but there’s nothing there, its eyes don’t show _anything_ , and…”

Sherlock wound to a stuttering stop and he ducked his head back down.

John sighed, amused but feeling a bit sorry for him. With a practiced set of moves, he wormed his way onto the chair and put his arms around Sherlock. Sherlock accepted the embrace, but he stayed tense and didn’t remove his arms from around his legs.

“So you’re a bit phobic of octopus,” John said.

“I suppose,” Sherlock said reluctantly. “I know it doesn’t make sense, but-”

“Phobias don’t make sense, love,” John said. “They’re not rational. I know you know intellectually that they’re harmless, but you can’t reason with that part of your brain.”

“But how do I get over this?” Sherlock spluttered.

“Time, and I guess some behavior modification therapy, if it’s severe. But why do you need to get over it?”

“The case, John! I can’t solve the case if I can’t be in the same room as the damn thing!”

“Oh, we solved the case.”

Sherlock’s startled but icy glare sucked nearly all the air out of the room. “What?”

“We solved it,” John continued, unperturbed. “Well. I solved it, I suppose.”

“You solved it.”

“Yeah.”

“Who was it? That woman in the lab coat? The cleaning staff?”

“No, the, um, octopus did it.”

“WHAT?”

“Well, we had a look at the security footage, and it didn’t show any people, which is why they called the police and us. But I caught sight of one of the arm, just in the corner of the screen. Turns out she – the octopus, her name is Dolores – had figured out how to get out of her tank, went across the hall just out of camera range, got into the fish tank, and had herself a snack, then went back. She’s been doing this for months, this is the first they’ve noticed.”

Sherlock’s face was a combination of disgust, horror, and disbelief. “Well, that doesn’t help my phobia _at all_.”

John laughed and hugged Sherlock a little closer. “They’re fascinating creatures, actually, Sherlock. Quite intelligent. They have evidence of octopus solving simple puzzles. In fact-”

“Shut. Up,” Sherlock said as he shuddered.

“Never mind, love. I’m just teasing you.”

“You have no right to make fun of me for this. I seem to recall a certain army captain who was afraid of a little spider in the bath.”

John’s voice went hard. “That wasn’t a little spider, he was at least an inch around. And I’ve seen spiders in Kandahar the size of your big fluffy head. Heard a big American marine scream like he was twelve.”

Sherlock snorted, then began to chuckle. His body shook against John’s until John started to laugh too. They giggled together until Sherlock’s body relaxed into John’s arms.

“Better?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, putting his arms around John at last.

“Good.” John kissed him on top of his head. “Now. What shall we have for dinner? Maybe… calamari?”

“Shut up.”

 

End

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a couple of stories of octopus really doing this kind of thing:
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/13/the-great-escape-inky-the-octopus-legs-it-to-freedom-from-new-zealand-aquarium?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
> 
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=lD8DAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA38&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false


End file.
